Friday, March 30, 2012

Do Panic!

It's funny watching this from afar. It would be funny watching it close up, so long as I didn't happen to be in urgent need of petrol :-)

Not sure if it's entirely fair to blame the Govt - I'm sure that no-one pays a blind bit of notice to anything Francis Maude usually says, so he can't have expected to be taken so seriously this time. The press is having a field day of course, accusing everyone but themselves. And it's so much more fun than talking about corruption at the heart of Govt, tax cuts for the rich, or the flatlining economy. It's just one of those "tipping points" (did I really say that?) where we can all have a jolly good laugh and no-one is really to blame.

Better hope the ATM-fillers don't talk about striking or the banks would be cleaned out in minutes.

(Hat tip to Helen for the picture, hat tip to the CTC for encouraging a bit of panic bicycle buying)

I came here to talk about petrol. And to say that, actually, the Govt may have got this right. The strike isn't yet, if it ever happens, and the best defence against the strike is people having full tanks. So getting people to fill up now is fine (we haven't bothered, though). So what if a few bozos sit in queues? They probably weren't doing anything useful anyway.

The problem of course, is that the bozos take the stuff home in jerry cans, milk cartons and more or less. And then they light themselves and their houses on fire.

Utterly predictable, already happened.

See, it's like climate change. No guarantee that it is going to be warmer tomorrow, but the smart money bets that way.

You now have a lot of fuel in cans in houses. When this goes away, it will remain there, and a few houses extra will burn down and a few more people will be seriously burnt, especially when the kids come across it.

No, the government hasn't gotten it right. For starters, filling up now when they have to give a weeks notice for the strike so you're looking at what, 10 days to a couple of weeks likely before any strike date, is entirely pointless. Secondly, mass panic buying leads to immediate and problematic shortages as we have already seen, and a number of cases of petrol pump rage and the filling of illegal containers in a fit of panic have been reported.

What I want to know is, as pointed out, why people seemed to panic so much over statements by a bunch of people known to be mendacious liars of the first order. If these people said the sky was blue I'd check for myself. Anyone know people who have been panic buying? I want to know what thoughts went through their heads. Are they even capable of any sort of critical thinking?

William, I'm shocked you are such a Tory. You should be out manning the barricades. Surely the Green Party supports this (non-)strike.

It's interesting to see how some portray this as a failure for the tanker drivers. They have "caused" huge disruption without even striking!

And as for petrol accidents, one thing is for sure - we'll be hearing about them, even if the incidence does not change. Come to think of it, I have bottle of petrol under the cooker in my kitchen too...however I make sure the hob is off before I take it out for a swig.

I'm loving the idea that the inevitability of 'the bozos' setting light to themselves is as inevitable as climate change. Brilliant. Glorious. The smart money bets that ..... I will break wind tomorrow.

Good Tweet today - Health Minister resigns after advising more fruit is good for you - father of four dies eating whole pineapple.